UK General Election thread

[How bad boy]

You have answered your own question as about 100 billion goes on pensions.

The Tories will need to get more people off welfare and working.

The story on how much unemployment actually costs is massively skewed in the public discourse:

Jobseeker's allowance, the dole, is over at about 8 o'clock, costing £4.9 billion

As you can see here:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/04/government-spending-department-2011-12
that's half the spending given to the devolved government in Northern Ireland, 2.5 times the money spent on the secret services and three times the money spent on the Lottery Commission.


The dole in the UK is scandalously low, seriously, last time I was unemployed, I didn't even bother to apply it's so little money for the shit and hassle you've to go through.

So cuts in that budget are one of those things I'd list as a bad idea.

The Bedroom Tax, for example, has probably saved about £160m, but caused a great deal of social harm.

The Conservative's plan to increase the minimum point at which inheritance tax kicks in to £1m will cost a little under £1 billion, and it'll benefit a very small, rich, group of people.
Not very smart economics, really, inherited money tends to limit social mobility and reduce the efficiency of the economy.


As for the point of tax being difficult to avoid in the UK, £60 billion was left as inheritances by the 34k who exceeded the threshold in 2011-1012, only £3 billion was paid in tax.
If you earn via a limited company vs PAYE, your tax burden is significantly lighter, as any good contractor will tell you.
Property taxes are a bad joke, massively burdensome on those at the bottom, ridiculously light on those at the top. As an example, the lowest band of council tax in my borough (Reading) is a smidge over £1k. No matter how shit your house is, that's the minimum you'll pay a year.


The highest rate is £3,178, so the buyer of this house http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-51869183.html will probably pay more on maintenance of his "rotating pad the owner uses for sumo-wrestling competitions" than on council tax.

 

[Rebel CNC]

Debt interest at £48bn would suggest that the Tories are just like any socialist, free spending party elsewhere, putting burden of today's spending on future generations.

Like it or not, whoever is running the show over there needs to address huge deficit fairly sharpish.

 

[Corcaigh32]

I wasn't saying they do not need to address their deficit, they clearly do. I am saying that a lot of people who voted Tory and let's face there was a massive swing in the last few days did not do it for more welfare cuts but rather for fear that ANY progress made economically over the last few years would be obliterated by a Red Ed and SNP government. There's a subtle but important difference there.

 

[poulgorm]

Debt interest at £48bn would suggest that the Tories are just like any socialist, free spending party elsewhere, putting burden of today's spending on future generations.

Like it or not, whoever is running the show over there needs to address huge deficit fairly sharpish.

Their economy is some 15 times the size of ours. We paid some €8 billion in debt interest last year. The UK paid £48 billion.

On a pro rata basis, we are in a much worse position.

 

[Killyoursons]

Debt interest at £48bn would suggest that the Tories are just like any socialist, free spending party elsewhere, putting burden of today's spending on future generations.

Like it or not, whoever is running the show over there needs to address huge deficit fairly sharpish.

The deficit has been halved under the current government (it had shot up to 10% largely as a result of the crash).

Tbh the real issue isn't free spending - it's where the money is coming from, and how much value you get for it. With the cost of borrowing as low as it is, it makes a lot of sense imo to invest in infrastructure which is needed anyway. There is a risk with that - on the other hand, there's a big risk that the kinds of cuts the Tories are now contemplating will have a detrimental effect on growth, which already weakened this year.

 

[How bad boy]

The deficit has been halved under the current government (it had shot up to 10% largely as a result of the crash).

Tbh the real issue isn't free spending - it's where the money is coming from, and how much value you get for it. With the cost of borrowing as low as it is, it makes a lot of sense imo to invest in infrastructure which is needed anyway. There is a risk with that - on the other hand, there's a big risk that the kinds of cuts the Tories are now contemplating will have a detrimental effect on growth, which already weakened this year.

Yep, housing spending is in the toilet, yet the £80bn HS2 is going ahead with a business case that is seriously ropey at best.

Local government budgets have been slashed, (which has caused roads to deteriorate badly in many areas) yet they've only provided £200 million of the estimated £12 billion needed.

Which isn't so good.

Then there's the defence spending...

 

[Stacky]

If the Tories invested in infrastructure, deprived areas and developed a social concience they could rule for decades

But that is unlikely to happen